The 70 or 72

From Jesus' teaching about the shepherd, sheep, and strangers he moves to the sending out of the 70 or 72 (depending on the manuscript; I am going to use 70 from here on). This is recorded in Luke 10 and seems to follow chronologically in our Challenger Deep journey. There are some thematic indicators of this. For instance in 10:3 Jesus speaks of sending them out like sheep among wolves, the same language used in John 10. In 10:16 Jesus tells the 70 that whoever listens to them it will be like listening to Him, and this parallels the idea of the sheep knowing the shepherd's voice. In 10:22 the truth of the intimacy of the Father and Son, and our being brought into this through revelation is mirrored in John 10:14-15. So there is continuity of thought in moving from John 10 to Luke 10.

Since the new is the reality of the old, like shadows and substance, it is not unusual that Jesus would use numeric symbolism in the choosing of 70 just as He chose the Twelve. The Twelve represented the Twelve tribes of Israel, and there are Jewish connections with the number 70. There were 70 elders of the Jewish nation. The number of members of Jacob's family who went into Egypt was 70, There are 70 nation/language groups recorded in Genesis 10 coming from Noah and his sons. Daniel outlines future Jewish history (from his day) according to 70 weeks (of years) culminating in the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. Then there is the translation of the Hebrew Old Testament into Greek, called the Septuagint which means 70 because of the 70 or 72 scholars in Alexandria, Egypt in about 200 BC who supposedly completed their work in 70 days. It is most likely that the difference between 70 and 72 came because it was thought there were six scribes from each of the 12 tribes of Israel.

Surely Jesus is drawing on the significance of these numbers and references to make a point that the new kingdom is the substance of the reflection that is found in the old. If we take the translation of the Hebrew Bible as the primary metaphor in Jesus' mind we can see that this represented the transition from old to new. The New Testament would be written in Greek for the world, not just the Jewish nation, and the Septuagint set the stage for this. The Dead Sea Scrolls brought this to light. Just as Alexandria was the seat of learning in the days preceding Jesus, so Jesus Himself is now the seat of learning for all time. Just as the Old Testament preceded Jesus as a schoolmaster (Gal.3) to bring people to Christ, so do these 70 who are sent out to prepare the way for Jesus' arrival in these villages. Jesus does many subtle things to show the connection between the old and the new, and that a transition is taking place before their eyes. This new revelation is not for the wise, like the learned of Alexandria, but for children, those humble souls in back-water villages in out of the way Judea. The wisdom that will go forth into all the earth will not go forth from Alexandria but from Jerusalem. All the books in Alexandria's massive library, as many as 500,000 scrolls, and the current learning of the time were no match for the wisdom in one Man, Jesus the Christ. Mark Antony is said to have given Cleopatra 200,000 scrolls to place in Alexandria's library. The simple message of the gospel of the kingdom, brought by these most likely unlearned, simple, middle-classed disciples, was more valuable than all of Alexandria's learning.